SCOTUS demonstrating their "Code of Intermittant-Ethics"
as they fawn ex parte with a Defendant
from a legal case before them (which they then ignored).
Posted on 01/02/2012 7:47:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Has anyone taken the demands for the recusals of Supreme Court justices on the ObamaCare case seriously? As I’ve written previously, they’re not offered seriously, but as a way of shaping the post-decision political battlefield, efforts that have begun on both sides of the issue. Chief Justice John Roberts told both sides to back off in his annual report to the federal judiciary:
The chief justice’s comments came in his annual report on the state of the federal judiciary. In it, he made what amounted to a vigorous defense of Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan, who are facing calls to disqualify themselves from hearing the health care case, which will be argued over three days in late March. He did not, however, mention the justices by name.
“I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process.”
Federal law requires that judges disqualify themselves when they have a financial interest in a case, have given ad-vice or expressed an opinion “concerning the merits of the particular case” or when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” For lower court judges, such a decision can be reviewed by a higher court, but the Supreme Court has no such review.
Chief Justice Roberts said the Supreme Court’s unique status made it impossible for the justices to follow the practices of lower-court judges in recusal matters. Lower-court judges can be replaced if they decide to disqualify themselves, he said, and their decisions about recusal can be reviewed by higher courts.
“The Supreme Court does not sit in judgment of one of its own members’ decision whether to recuse in the course of deciding a case,” he wrote. “Indeed, if the Supreme Court reviewed those decisions, it would create an undesirable situation in which the court could affect the outcome of a case by selecting who among its members may participate.”
There is only one controlling authority for the issue of recusals at the level of the Supreme Court: the individual justice in question. Neither Congress nor the President can require a justice to recuse himself or herself from a case, and as Roberts writes, the Court would destroy itself if it attempted to “select” justices for the decision. Certainly they can apply peer pressure if an especially egregious set of circumstances arose, but they could not bar a justice from participating in a decision without opening a Pandora’s box of very, very bad consequences. The only remedy would be for Congress to impeach a justice that refused to recuse, but unless the evidence for conflict of interest was stark and unequivocal, that would touch off a partisan battle that would make the confirmation hearing for Robert Bork look like a postal-office naming debate.
Everyone already knows that neither Elena Kagan nor Clarence Thomas will recuse themselves from this case. Roberts would like both sides to quit making demands and either inadvertently or purposefully undermining the credibility of the Court before they even get to opening arguments.
SCOTUS demonstrating their "Code of Intermittant-Ethics"
as they fawn ex parte with a Defendant
from a legal case before them (which they then ignored).
Quite frankly, this entire political kangaroo court of political appointees unanswerable to anyone needs to be disbanded.
So bring on the ‘battle’, after Kagan makes a mockery of Chief Justice Roberts’ assurances. And why is it that no one laughs when the heavy left raises the spectre of ‘partisan conflict’ when they wish to insulate one of their arrant partisan ‘jurists’ from reasonable criticism - as if they gave a whit for such concerns when they are conducting yet another lynching of ANY and every judicial nominee of the constitutional conservative persuasion.
“Has anyone taken the demands for the recusals of Supreme Court justices on the ObamaCare case seriously?”
No, no more seriously than the demands that the putative president prove his eligibility under the Constitution.
Yes indeed - absolutely obscene to see not one but both of the chimpanzees [the Kenyan and Joey Hairplug] schmoozing with the Chief Justice himself. Were Justices Alito and Scalia in the room with the Kenyan chimp? Lord help us all.
It seems that there will never be a perfect government because of human nature and the pull of corruption. We have to deal with what we get. It’s sad.
Government wants to grow, and it wants to be more intrusive, and it wants to be corrupt.
The only protection is to make government small and poor. Alas, we have failed and now government is our master and we are the slaves.
Smacks of Kagan.
Chief Roberts
Why did you swear Obama into office?
BUMP!
LLS
Seems like someone should be addressing the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and that fish bribe down in the Sunshine State, about now. This whole deal reeks of corruption form the word “Go”, in front of our own eyes, and God, & everyone else. Good Grief, what a total scam. This is worse than a 3rd world dictatorship, but no one wants to offend anyone. wt*?
The fact Roberts chooses to address and defend the calls for Thomas’s recusal as if they were as appropriate and legitimate as calls for Kagan’s recusal is disappointing to say the least.
This article is absolutely correct. The justices cannot get into a zero-sum game of trying to second-guess any one justice’s decision to recuse or not; keep in mind, even if a justice has a conflict of interest, that does not by any stretch mean that the decision of the Court will be necessarily skewed by that conflict. Firstly, although the justices would never openly rebuke a colleague for not recusing, they would certainly take that failure into account in making their decision on the case, and would discount the weight of that justice’s opinion. Secondly, by definition with a 5-4 decision there are strong arguments on either side and therefore it becomes almost impossible to legitimately say that the only reason a conflicted justice voted the way they did was because of that conflict - if that were the case, then you would have to question whether the other 4 justices were not also under an undisclosed conflict, which again, would basically destroy the Court. For example, does anyone seriously believe that J. Kagan would have ruled any differently than she will rule had she not been solicitor general and not given the Obama (mal)administration her opinion (wrong as it was) on the constitutionality of Obamacare? I seriously doubt that would be the case, so whether or not she gave that opinion will not be determinative of the outcome of her decision on the unconstitutionality of Obamacare as a justice of the Supreme Court. Besides which, this objection to Kagan is founded on politics, which every justice brings with him or her to the bench - if obnoxious political views were a legitimate basis for requiring a justice to recuse him or herself, there would be almost no justices to hear most cases.
The same thing goes for Thomas - he has no direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the Obamacare decision and therefore has no conflict that would require his recusal, notwithstanding that his politics and his prior rulings clearly indicate how he is most likely to rule on the issue.
The only real basis for demanding that a justice of the Supreme Court recuse him or herself is a direct pecuniary interest (including that of immediate family members) in the outcome of the case - i.e., the way in which the Court rules, pro or con, should have a clear economic effect on that direct pecuniary interest - and the solution to the situation where a justice with a clear direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of a case who refuses to recuse is impeachment by Congress.
You don't even need to get to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors. According to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution: ...The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior,... . I would state that by not recusing herself in a case she worked or while at the White House she is not acting in "good behavior".
Roberts would like both sides to quit making demands and either inadvertently or purposefully undermining the credibility of the Court before they even get to opening arguments.
Sorry, Justice Roberts, Kagan staying on the case is what will purposefully undermine the credibility of the court, not what her opponents say.
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